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John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

Manny Jones, health care solution manager at LockPath, recently sent me 5 tips to consider in order to meet HIPAA guidelines. It addresses some of the following questions: What does the HIPAA Omnibus rule mean for me? How do I know if I’m compliant? Where do I even begin?

This list of 5 tips are a good place to start.

1. Be prepared for more frequent audits and a fine structure based on knowledge – The new tiered approach means organizations can face much higher fines if they’re not in compliance with the rule.

2. Update Notice of Privacy Practice (NPP) – These should explain that individuals will be notified if there is a breach, disclosures around areas that now require authorizations, and more. Once updated, organizations should redistribute to patients and others to ensure they’re aware of changes.

3. Develop new processes – These should address additional restrictions on use or disclosure of protected health information (PHI).

4. Identify assets containing PHI – Once an organization has an inventory of these assets, they can determine where safeguards/breach notification obligations apply.

5. Understand the new definitions – Organizations should understand how “breach” and “business associate” are now defined and how they apply to their organization.

For those wanting to really dig into the details of HIPAA compliance, you’ll want to consider a HIPAA Compliance training course. These are easy online courses for both the HIPAA privacy officer or your staff. As is noted above, more frequent audits and fines are coming.

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Free EMR Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use,
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